June 18^th (Monday)

           Today is clinic day, which usually means it’s a lot of work for the doctors and the more senior (missionary) nurses to see patients at clinic. For us, we tend to do small tasks that we are able, but it is difficult to be helpful as we don’t know the language and that is crucial to figure out what the issues are for these patients. We went up to the hospital at 7:30am for ward rounds (we are adjusting fine to “Zambian time”). Ward rounds tend to be longer these days with several (two or three) doctors to discuss the cases along with the missionary nurses. We had tea, and there was birthday cake at tea break for Dorothy’s 71^st birthday.

After tea Nicole and I observed an I&D (incision and drainage) of an abscess on a woman’s cheek. Dr. Lipsi injected a local anaesthetic but it wasn’t really working; at least, the patient was in quite a bit of pain when he was packing the wound. Jack actually had to hold the woman’s arms down.

About that time when we finished it was time to go to lunch at Dorothy’s house. We had chicken and it was quite good aside from a few pieces that were slightly overdone. Tom from Unionville Gospel hall and Dorothy were going back-and-forth with teasing, dry humor, quick witty remarks… That could be taken as offensive. Let’s just say the meal was quite entertaining! I’ve never had to hold in so much laughter and surprise during a meal!

We returned to Kariba and observed a rather painful procedure on a man who underwent a urethral dilatation where Dr. Lipsi essentially inserted metal rods with a slightly curved end increasing in size (I think he inserted about six). The man received local aesthetic, however, he was experiencing a lot of pain. After the dilatation Dr. Lipsi inserted a catheter.

We also observed an LP (lumbar puncture) on a younger man who couldn’t see and he is experiencing paralysis so they sent it to the lab in Zambezi to see if they could get answers.

We had Tiffany over for supper. We ate leftovers from the day before and made more naan bread. We talked for a while and then she went home to catch up on sleep that she missed over the weekend. The three of us then played some games in the evening, read our books, and then went to bed. The next morning I would be going with Dorothy to see her chronic patients and it is an all-day affair.//